by Nigel May
Back in the kitchen, looking down at the blackened moussaka, Victoria moved to the bin in order to tip the food away. Leo was right, it did smell. As she went to scrape the moussaka into the rubbish, she looked at her wedding ring. The clarity of the huge diamond that sat atop her finger was a complete contrast to the black surface of the food. Not wanting to sully it with the ashy topping of the meal, she placed the moussaka back on the work surface and twisted the ring off her finger to place in her pocket.
She had so much to be grateful for. A beautiful pair of children, a nanny to share her workload, a husband who earned good money and maintained a roof over their heads. It was all she’d ever wanted, wasn’t it? So why was Victoria staring at her ringless finger and thinking it looked better that way?
Four
Pulling his body upwards on the jail gym chin-up bar, Jack Christie looked at the muscle definition on his arms. He’d never been in better shape. And it wasn’t just his arms. Letting himself drop to the concrete floor he looked into the gym mirror and surveyed his body. Apart from a pair of sweat pants and some sneakers, he was naked. His body was no longer that of a scrawny teenager, he was now a mountain of masculinity. Thick veins ran the full length of either bicep. His chest, covered with a smooth coating of fine dirty blonde hair, stood proud and defined. One pec was completely covered in a tribal tattoo, starting at the nipple and spreading outwards and up onto his shoulder. Another tattoo, a jackdaw, his nickname, sat on his stomach, rising and falling with the movement of his deeply sculptured six-pack. Another covering of hair reached out from under and around his navel and across the hardness of his belly. He possessed a body he had worked on for a long time.
‘You’re invincible, man,’ he cried to himself. He raised his fist to his chest and beat it, Tarzan-style. A grin spread across his face, revealing a remarkably good set of teeth, considering the knocks they’d taken over the years. One, off to the side of his mouth, was gold in colour.
‘You reckon so?’ The voice came from the doorway of the gym. It was gruff and sneering in tone.
‘Any day of the fucking week,’ barked Jack. ‘I’m in better shape than anybody. Now excuse me, I’m getting out of here.’
He pushed past the man, smiling as he did so. He was right. He was getting out of there. The place he’d spent the last five years for unlawful entry with intention to steal. He’d been stupid and got himself caught. It had always been his problem. A little bit too cocky for his own good. He should have just broken into the house, one of the rich ones in the suburbs of London, and stolen money, cash that couldn’t be traced. That was the agreement as ever. But no, he’d seen a really smart silver bird brooch just sitting there on a dressing table. It looked like a jackdaw, just like the one he had tattooed on his stomach. Just like his nickname. Unable to resist he’d pocketed it for himself. A foolish nineteen-year-old, he’d pinned it to his hat the following week and worn it out to go clubbing. That just so happened to be the night the police had nicked him for speeding. When you’re a raggedy-arsed teenager, wearing something as distinctive as a silver jackdaw breeds suspicion. A police search revealed that the item had been reported as stolen.
Jack was sentenced to five years, but that was nearly all in the past. As he walked back to his jail cell, sweat still dripping down his chest, he loved what his stay in prison had done for him. It had made him grow up. Not in terms of maturity, but physicality and strength.
Back in his cell, he picked up a marker pen and scored another line on his wall. He’d been doing it for the last month. Another line down, another cross on a five bar gate. Only seven more and he’d be out of there for good. He’d done his time. He’d entered prison as a boy but he’d be leaving a man. The jackdaw was about to fly free and the thought turned him on.
Five
‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’
‘Do I have a choice?’ asked Georgia. ‘Because if so, I’d like the good news followed by some more good news, topped off with a side serving of some fantastic news, please. That’s about all I can handle at the moment. I need to live in a fairy tale bubble right now, and everything in the Sunday papers is just doom and gloom. Where’s my Disney ending?’
‘Well, Princess, seeing as that’s what you are to me, let me be your knight in shining armour, your Prince Eric, your Aladdin … whisk you away on a magic carpet.’
If there was one thing that Charlie could always be relied on to do it was to bring a smile to Georgia’s face. He’d already done so that Sunday morning with a sensual and tender bout of love-making. It had almost become tradition on their weekends. After a week of ridiculously early mornings working on Rise and Shine, both Charlie and Georgia lived for their days off together. Friday night would be curry night, maybe a bar with friends in Shoreditch or a trip up the Shard for cocktails. Saturday would be a trip to Borough Market, to stock their fridges with cheeses, breads and dips from across the globe. Snacking was one of those bad habits that both of them had picked up from working on live TV and if they were going to snack, well, surely a decent knob of bread and a lump of crumbly cheese was better than a choccy bar and a bag of cheese and onion.
Not that either of them really had to watch their weight. Both were blessed with athletic genes and fast metabolisms, meaning that good food was often on the menu. Saturday nights would often find them savouring the delights of pollock balls in lobster sauce or some such culinary masterpiece at their favourite London eaterie, The Duck & Waffle on the fortieth floor of the Heron Tower, where the spectacular views across the capital matched the quality of the food.
Sunday mornings would always begin with sex. As would Saturdays if they were honest, but Sundays had become a tradition. Not in a ‘once a week before a catch up on the week’s Sky Planner’ kind of way. Far from it. Georgia and Charlie had a healthy sex life right throughout the week with stolen passionate moments taken wherever possible, but Sunday morning seemed to be the one moment that always seemed to be stress-free, away from work, away from deadlines, away from any discussion about weather and safely wrapped up in the warmth and comfort of each other’s companionship and love. Elton John sang ‘Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting’, well Georgia and Charlie knew that Sunday morning was always alright for loving.
‘So, come on then, break it to me,’ smiled Georgia, lifting her head off Charlie’s naked chest. They were still duvet-daying at Charlie’s Old Street flat. Georgia loved it there. It was clean, modern and fresh, Art Deco in design and perfectly positioned for London life. She adored the melting pot of people who lived in the area; artists who had managed to convince showy galleries that their few blobs of paint and a gilded-frame were hundred thousand pound masterpieces and techy bods, playing the new rock stars in an age of computer innovation. And of course it was rammed with media types. You couldn’t pass a deli without bumping into a young hot shot TV producer or an on-trend club DJ. And Georgia and Charlie fitted right in.
They would either spend the weekends there or at Georgia’s Grade II listed character cottage in Wimbledon Village. It was away from London madness, a bolt hole from the insanity of their lives, and a place where they could watch the wisteria grow and birds wash themselves in their courtyard bird bath, as they listened to Dusty Springfield, Adele or Coldplay.
‘Well, good news first.’
Georgia pulled the duvet and wrapped it around her chest, her interest piqued. ‘Go on.’
‘You like curries, right?’
‘We’ve cracked enough poppadums together to know the answer to that one …’
‘Work have asked me to go to India to interview one of the celebrity chefs from the TV. He’s just started courses out there for rich tourists and apparently a few celebrities have already signed up for his tuition, so work thought it might be a good idea for me to spend a few days learning how to beef up my bhajis and vamp up my vindaloo. The course is in Agra, very close to the Taj Mahal, so if you fancy coming along and can swing a few days off, then I thoug
ht it would be the perfect opportunity for you to unwind. It’s only a couple of days work, but we could tack a bit of sightseeing on the end. What do you say?’
‘You had me at “curry”,’ squealed Georgia. ‘I’ve always wanted to go to India. Dad says it’s one of the most spiritual places he’s ever been and a colourful assault on the senses. He says he was a much more grounded person after coming back from there. When do we go?’
‘If you clear it with work, then we’ll leave on Thursday. Can one of the other weather girls step in?’ Charlie raised an eyebrow hopefully.
‘I’ll make sure they can. It’s just what I need. I can’t switch off from thinking about Mitzi and Foster. There’s hardly anything in the papers about them today. It’s only been a few weeks but interest is seriously dwindling. Why isn’t anybody doing anything? People shouldn’t just disappear.’ Georgia picked up the papers surrounding them – another Sunday tradition; having physical copies to flick through in bed as opposed to poring over websites – and threw them to the floor.
‘People are forgetting already. I can’t bear the thought of Mitzi and Foster just being another couple of missing person statistics.’
‘Something will turn up eventually, it has to,’ offered Charlie. He wasn’t sure he believed his own words but he prayed that both Foster and Mitzi were alive. Mitzi had been the one who had welcomed him into their inner circle of friendship when he’d first met Georgia. He could still hear her say, ‘You make my girl happy, you make me happy. You shit on her then I will give your sorry Yankee ass a good kicking quicker than you can say “LA” matey,’ as if it were yesterday. He loved her because she loved Georgia. As did he. Which spared him any potential kicking.
Georgia sighed. ‘Anyway, I am loving your good news, so what is the bad?’
‘We won’t be alone in India.’
‘No, aren’t there about a billion or so other people in that country?’ replied Georgia, her sarcasm somewhat heavy.
‘My mum will be with us. In fact it she was the one who told me about the course, so she is kind of the reason we would be going anyway. She’s signed up for it as she loves the chef. Apparently his shows are shown on one of the cooking channels over in the States and she is completely besotted with him. She wanted to take the camera for her own TV show but the big bosses said no. She reckons if she can do a reccy and convince them that it will make fabulous telly then she’ll be able to go back again. You know mother.’
Indeed Georgia did. She was a tour-de-force and not always the easiest person to be around, but if she could survive the odd stay with Charlie’s mother in the madness of her home city, Los Angeles, then she could survive a few days with her in the calm, spice-scented air of India, couldn’t she?
‘Does the thought of your mother always do that to you?’ indicated Georgia, pointing to the tenting at Charlie’s crotch underneath the duvet. ‘Please tell me you haven’t developed some weird Oedipus Complex.’
‘Christ, no,’ laughed Charlie. ‘But those do.’ He cupped his hands around Georgia’s breasts that had become exposed as the duvet had dropped while they were talking about Charlie’s mother. He bent down and kissed one of her nipples, biting down on it slightly with his teeth. It rose beautifully to attention, as did Georgia’s other as Charlie brushed it with his fingertips. A ripple of desire filtered through Georgia’s body.
He reached for her hand underneath the duvet and clasped it around his long, hard member. Charlie was well-endowed, possessing both length and girth.
She ran her hand up and down his shaft and then cupped her hands around his balls. She moved them gently and slowly across her palm, tugging at them slightly.
‘Well, what do you know, there’s a couple of gulab jamuns down here that need eating,’ she grinned, making reference to her favourite Indian dessert. She swooped down and placed her head between her lover’s thighs, at first working her tongue along the entire length of his cock, before licking a figure-of-eight across Charlie’s balls, planting feather-light kisses and expert flicks of her tongue as she did so. His cock strained at her touch, engorged with lust.
Staring up at Charlie from between his legs with her mesmerising eyes, Georgia noted from that angle he did indeed look a little like the Disney version of Aladdin, his hair swept back and richly luxuriant. Very Princely indeed.
‘Enjoy your starters? I think it’s time for the main course, don’t you?’ She straddled his body and let his cock slide into her.
All thoughts of Charlie’s mum had disappeared from her mind. Which was no bad thing. Oh yes, she knew his mother.
As did the world…
Six
Charlie’s mum was none other than Nova Chevalier, the brash, loud-mouthed star of Champagne Super Nova, a reality TV sensation in America. In an age where Real Wives this and A-List that were making stars of the most unlikely of people – look at Honey Boo Boo’s Mama June for example – it seemed that it had only been a matter of time before Nova had turned into a bona fide celebrity. And right now, Nova was riding a wave of Stateside success that was keeping her up with the likes of the Keeping Ups. And after all that she’d been through in life, Nova was determined to enjoy every madcap, bizarre moment. Hell, didn’t she deserve it? She thought so.
Nova’s real name was Nina Cooper, and she had always been quite a phenomenon in her own little way. A ‘freak unique’, some would say, given that she came from the most ordinary of backgrounds. A fact she never forgot.
Growing up in West Hills, Los Angeles, Nina was a pretty girl, famed for her long blonde hair and petite pouty lips. She would walk to school with her Penelope Pitstop rucksack glued to her back, full of her books for class.
She was a good pupil and popular with teachers. As she grew older, she became just as popular with the local boys.
Nina had always been a dreamer, loving to watch celebrities on TV or read about them in her comic magazines. She loved seeing who was dating whom, reading about where her faves hung out. One day that would be her, she had no doubt.
It didn’t take Nina too long into her teens to work out that she was able to wrap boys right around her brightly nail-painted finger. In fact she was only a few days past her thirteenth birthday when she first let a boy slide his hand up her T-shirt and feel her small forming buds in order to gain a few extra dollars to buy more comics. She’d been savvy enough to realise that as soon as her breasts started to distend the front of her clothes thanks to the onslaught of puberty, boys in the area were literally walking around with their mouths hanging open and their tongues hanging out. And the dollars also came in handy for buying cinema tickets and posters of her favourite movie stars. The craggily handsome Harrison Ford – how she marvelled over his swagger and physique in Raiders Of The Lost Ark – or the drop dead gorgeous Mel Gibson in the Mad Max films. Dirty, dangerous and dynamic – what a trinity. She also used the extra money on make-up to make herself look a little bit older than she actually was, painting her nails and adding a touch of powder to her cheeks or a slick of colour to her eyes and lips. Getting turned away from the Cineplex for being underage was not an option.
No, Nina knew how to work the boys and dreamt of success outside of West Hills. It was a good area, full of lovely people, but Nina wanted the red carpet glamour she’d seen on TV.
Her parents, good Christian members of the local LA churchgoers, were respectable enough. Pleasant people with decent jobs, putting food on the table. But only child Nina was bored by talk of Harvest Festivals and Nativities. Boys were her outlet.
As Nina’s breasts grew, so did her popularity. The two things seemed to be in direct correlation with each other. Larger breasts meant more hands up T-shirts, which meant more money. It was like a cashpoint in reverse. Instead of making a withdrawal, boys would come to Nina, press a few of her ‘buttons’ and then make a financial deposit into the fund that Nina was accruing in order to escape West Hills. Call it her very own business acumen. She never doubted that she could make her life c
ount and the destination for the action had to be Hollywood, home to the stars.
At the age of seventeen, with enough money in her pocket to enjoy a taxi ride to the streets of Hollywood and immerse herself, albeit illegally, in the bars she’d longed to visit and the glitzy cocktails she’d longed to taste, she ventured to the bright lights.
That was the night she lost her virginity. A pumped up college jock in his early twenties showered her with compliments, supplied her with the cocktails she’d craved and then fucked her up against the wall of a diner in a Hollywood back street. Even though there was absolutely nothing glamorous or movie-star about the act, Nina felt that she had become a woman.
She had no idea at the time that maybe it was allowed to last longer than just a few urgent thrusts, that there was such a thing as foreplay or indeed that maybe contraception might have been a good idea, as would gaining the lad’s name and telephone number.
A few weeks later, after Nina had taken herself off to the doctors because she kept being sick, it was confirmed that she was pregnant. Seventeen and up the duff with God-fearing parents. When she told her folks she had literally expected them to string her up from the nearest tree. They didn’t, but they were heartbroken. But they stood by her. Eight months later, baby Charlie was born.
For fifteen years, Nina put her life on hold. Her son was her everything. Money was tight but she managed. When Charlie was fifteen his grandfather died from a heart attack while watching him perform in a soccer match at school. Charlie was there to witness the last gasps of breath from the man that had always been a dad to him, as the only fatherly influence he had experienced in his life.